BHS girls swim wins Dan Tran Invitational

Thursday

Mar 13, 2014 at 2:59 PM

LANCASTER — The Burroughs girls swim team won the Dan Tran Invitational on Saturday — and did so without swimming in its final event. The Burros finished atop 15 teams to capture the invitational held at Eastside Pool.

By Anthony GentileSPORTS EDITORagentile@ridgecrestca.com

LANCASTER — The Burroughs girls swim team won the Dan Tran Invitational on Saturday — and did so without swimming in its final event. The Burros finished atop 15 teams to capture the invitational held at Eastside Pool.“I’m glad that that didn’t affect our win — I knew we were ahead at some point but I didn’t see the scores until after the event,” Burros coach Dora Barnes said. “I was really thrilled.” Burroughs swam in the second heat of the 400 freestyle relay, the 11th and final girls’ event of the meet that spanned more than 12 hours. The Burros’ heat started as planned, but it was stopped after the first leg so the pool could be shut down — an injury in the first heat that required a rescue should have shut down the pool instantly, and meet officials stopped the next race instead. The pool was shut down for five to 10 minutes, which was enough of a delay to throw off warmup times and not enough time for the BHS swimmers that competed in the cancelled race to recover. Instead of racing when the pool reopened, Barnes decided to keep Burroughs out of the water.“Rather than risk injury for two of my swimmers, I opted that it was a better choice to protect them and not swim the relays after that,” Barnes said. “I told my girls to go get dressed — we were done.“The girls are worth more to me than that one race and that one meet — I wasn’t going to take the chance of damaging the girls for that one race. We have far more races that we can do and we’ll get the times we need at other places.”Burroughs won the event with 393 points, beating second-place Quartz Hill by nearly 20 points despite losing roughly 50 points by not competing in the 400 freestyle relay. Desert Sky League rival Granite Hills finished third with 300 points — the Cougars also decided not to swim in the last event of the meet.“It was nice having Granite Hills there, but some of the other teams weren’t that firm,” Barnes said. “Minus the little bit of competition here and there, it wasn’t that competitive — but we got some good swims out of the kids.” Burroughs led off the meet by swimming to two of the top seven spots in the 200 medley relay. The Burros ‘A’ team of Kayla Herrera, Cindel Barnes, Rebecca Williams and Aliya Halterman came in second with a time of 2:03.21, and the BHS ‘B’ team of Jordyn Rivers, Leah Bayer, Madelene Perez and Mallory McDaniel finished seventh by swimming a 2:16.42.In the 200 freestyle, Ashley Flatman finished second with a time of 2:15.64; Granite Hills’ Raina Bell won the event. Karina Costanzo (fifth, 2:19.89), Breana Davis (10th, 2:26.86) and Leah Ostermann (12th, 2:31.29) also placed for Burroughs.Sophie Hoffmann won the 200 individual medley with a time of 2:21.10, and Burroughs claimed three of the top four spots. McDaniel swam to a third-place finish with a time of 2:36.81 and Barnes finished fourth by swimming a 2:38.94.Herrera was Burroughs’ fastest swimmer in the 50 freestyle — she finished sixth with a time of 28.15. Costanzo also earned points in the event, finishing 11th by swimming a 28.56.Hoffmann and Williams finished two-three in the 100 butterfly behind Granite Hills’ Crystal Ortega. Hoffmann swam a 1:02.89 and Williams swam a 1:05.03; Bayer finished 13th with a time of 1:23.17.In the 100 freestyle, Hoffman finished second behind Bell with a time of 57.29 — more than a second faster than her previous best this season. Davis swam to a 12th-place finish in the event with a time of 1:06.28.McDaniel was the top Burroughs finisher in the 500 freestyle — she swam to second place with a CIF consideration time of 5:57.61. Flatman came in fourth by swimming a 6:11.81 and Ostermann finished 10th by swimming a 6:59.17.“She was close toward the end of last season, and I’ve known all along she was capable of doing it — it’s just getting her to do it,” Barnes said of McDaniel. “She broke six minutes and made sure that she made that cut — she was really happy with that swim and the next time around it should be that much easier.” In the 200 freestyle relay, the Burroughs ‘A’ team of Williams, Barnes, Costanzo and Hoffman won with a time of 1:50.67. The Burros ‘B’ team of Perez, Bayer, Daniele Jimenez and Ostermann finished 11th by swimming a 2:05.45. Burroughs finished second, third and fourth in the 100 backstroke — Halterman finished in 1:05.66, Herrera swam a 1:07.90 and Williams had a time of 1:08.12. Rivers (10th, 1:15.03) and Perez (14th, 1:19.40) also earned points for BHS in the event. Barnes was Burroughs’ fastest swimmer in the 100 breaststroke, finishing fifth with a time of 1:20.29. That was Burros’ last swim of the invitational after they opted out of the 400 freestyle relay.Burroughs returns to action on Saturday, March 22 in the Nighthawk Swim Invitational at Murrieta Valley High. The varsity-only meet will feature swimmers from Division 2 schools, and will provide a tough test for the Burros.“We just need to work on bringing times down — we need to tighten up some of our technique and some of the girls are shaking off the dust from the offseason,” Barnes said. “It will definitely be a more competitive meet — several of the schools there are Division 2 schools and that will help us.”